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readingsquotes · 7 months ago

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...As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes in Between the World and Me,

“You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”

...we need to understand that “Indigenous”—always capitalized—is an intrinsically political term, created in response to colonization.

In a place that has never known colonization, there’s no need for a concept like “Indigenous.” Before the Europeans came to Abya Yala, we were simply “people.”

Then the colonizers invaded, destroyed our traditional governance structures, killed our people, stole our lands. In this part of the world, they called us “Indians” to distinguish us from them, and they made laws to codify our inferiority. “Indian” became a social and legal reality.

But “Indian” was a colonial term specific to the Americas. In other places, colonizers used terms like “aboriginal” or “native,” along with a wide variety of (other) slurs.

The umbrella term “Indigenous peoples” was adopted by the nascent Indigenous peoples movement of the 1970s as an explicitly internationalist term to highlight the commonality of experience between disparate peoples around the world. It was also, in part, a radical act of self-naming meant to repudiate the othering implicit in received names like “Indian.”

That is, resistance to colonization was always part of the definition and the intent. This is part of why attempts at precise technical definitions like “the first people to live in a place” always fall short.

As Sámi scholar Troy Storfjell says,“Indigeneity is an analytic, not an identity. … Indigeneity describes a certain set of relationships to colonialism, anticolonialism, and specific lands and places.”

Put another way: the onset of colonization creates the categories of Indigenous people and colonizers (or “settlers”). The persistence of colonial structures maintains them.

That’s why it’s pretty much only fascists who say things like “Germans are the Indigenous people of Germany.” The term is nonsensical in that context, and using it that way only detracts from the intent—and therefore potency—of the word.

It’s also important to note that within Indigenous and Decolonization studies, “colonialism” refers to particular systems of domination that emerged after 1491.

... But “Indigenous” isn’t a badge you win for life; it’s a description of your relationship, as Storfjell says, “with specific lands and places.”

...What about Jews in North America? Remember, the form of colonialism still underway in North America is not primarily exploitation colonialism (like that practiced by the British in India), but settler colonialism. Under settler colonialism, foreign colonists (settlers) attempt to replace Indigenous people, taking control of the land and imposing their own cultural systems by killing, expelling, or forcibly assimilating the original inhabitants.

Under the racial apartheid laws of the antebellum US, Jews were legally defined as white and therefore allowed to own property in the form of enslaved Africans and stolen Native land (and they did both). They were settlers from the get-go.

What about those later Jewish immigrants who came to the US and Canada fleeing the pogroms of the Russian Empire? Certainly, they left Europe as refugees. But why, precisely, was this the Land of Opportunity for them? Why did their children and grandchildren largely Make It?

Because they weren’t Native or Black, of course. They were settlers. And like many generations of settlers before them, they faced persecution and marginalization … until they learned how to act like the Europeans who had arrived earlier.

None of this means that Jews don’t face antisemitism in North America, or anywhere else. What we’re talking about is a particular positionality in a colonialist system. Jews, Muslims, queer and trans people, disabled people—many, many types of people are marginalized and threatened by the oppressive power structures of colonial states. And many of those people still wield settler power, nevertheless.

...

There’s a reason that by and large, when Indigenous people look at what’s happened in Palestine since 1948, we know whose experience looks the most like ours. Hint: It’s not the Israeli Jews.

We too, have been told that our lands were empty when the settlers arrived (“A land without a people…”); subjected to forced removal; murdered by armies hand-in-hand with settler posses; slandered as uncivilized, backwards, intrinsically violent; told that the elimination of our villages, towns, and cities was an accident, regrettable, inevitable—then had them rebuilt, filled with settlers, and renamed in a foreign language. We’ve had our sacred sites destroyed; our cultures criminalized; our very existence labeled an obstacle to peace and security.

When we see an Israeli state friendly with settler colonial powers like the US, Canada, and South Africa, a state happy to massacre Indigenous Guatemalans to serve its own goals, there’s a reason we don’t feel like we’re looking at Indigenous governance.

It’s not what we created the word to mean.

...

We know whose experience looks the most like ours.

Remember what I said about how it’s the conditions of colonialism that create the categories of settler and Indigenous? Because “Indigenous” and “settler” are not identities or awards or punishments—they’re labels describing relationships within positionalities of power.

#palestine #free palestine #isreal #gaza #genocide #apartheid #colonization #american imperialism #us politics #police state #indigenous #indigenous peoples #indigenous issues

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winterbirb · 6 months ago

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I am not out here saying no easy diplomatic solution existed, but I will say no easy, obvious one did

This line highlights what's probably a key difference between our perspectives: in my opinion, in matters like this, doing what's easy and obvious, if it causes negative effects that could have been prevented, still counts to me as a failure... at best, cringeworthy and definitely not based (unless the word is used purely in the meme sense).

I go on a tangent about Syria so the rest is under the cut for pseudo-brevity lol

When it comes to diplomacy, I'm definitely not a populist. I also have high standards. Probably my gold standard for wriggling out of an All Bad situation was the 2013 US-Syria chemical weapons deal, and I know that's an unpopular opinion, because an element that made it work was Obama and Kerry publicly taking Ls for later benefits. My idea of what happened also includes a lot of lying to the public, although ofc I can't prove this for... idk, give or take a decade.

The deal was struck on the eve of ISIS's invasion, without making the Obama government seem pro-Assad, without causing a panic about a terrorist attack, without having our intelligence into Sunni extremists suddenly cut off by Sunni "allies", and without strengthening those same Sunni allies and/or extremists by destroying the Assad government. This was done with Russia, without forcing Russia to abandon its Syrian ally (and this is where the public Ls helped out).

Notably, none of this happened during Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, probably because she only used the "easy and obvious" route of trying to force and threaten everyone else because that's what's popular.

(Maybe it says something about me that I think sending aircraft carriers to threaten to flatten Damascus isn't as diplomatically problematic as strongarming Russia by using their shitty (Western-suggested) economic system. The key difference to me is that Russia ended up humiliated and hurt, and Syria didn't. People dismiss this, but it's actually extremely important for people who actually bother to plan ahead. imo.)

The 2013 deal was probably helped by pre-existing personal US-Russia connections. Considering Bill Clinton's friendship with Yeltsin, this shouldn't have been a problem for him.

All-in-all, both the expansion of NATO and the Ukrainian status quo would have probably been less threatening to Russia if this was handled correctly (which is almost never easy or obvious but neither is being a doctor, and I still expect them to do their job properly). I mean, the election of 2000 and George W's first-term foreign policy also hurt matters, but it very likely wouldn't have had such a compounding effect.

Maybe it's wrong to judge the Clintons for not coming up with a diplomatic maneuver that Obama invented 15 years later, but I'm just bitchy like that.

#just to call out my own bullshit: i know a LOT more about the syria deal than the kosovo sich (which is more like a recurring cameo)#it could be an attempt to get back in my own known territory. or i could just be rambling about 2013 for the 420th time 🤷‍♂️#additions #politiposting

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annphanh · 1 year ago

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Are polls accurate?

There is currently a lively political discussion in the media about the potential introduction of a wealth tax in New Zealand. According to a recent poll conducted by Newshub Reid Research: "Would you support the Government introducing a wealth tax?" The results showed that 53.1% of respondents answered yes, while 34.7% opposed it (Lynch, 2023).

Tax policy is a complex topic that involves various stakeholders, including the government, corporations, and our fellow citizens. The government plays a crucial role in determining tax policy, but it also faces the challenge of striking a balance between generating revenue and ensuring fairness in the tax system. Businesses and citizens, who are directly affected by the tax system and have valuable insights, also have an important role to play in shaping tax policy.

Interestingly, despite being a frequently discussed topic during election seasons, none of the political parties in Aotearoa have actually implemented a wealth tax. However, the fact that it continues to generate public interest and debate raises questions. Perhaps this is because of the growing wealth inequality in New Zealand, with a small percentage of the population holding a significant portion of the country's wealth. This disparity has led to calls for a wealth tax as a means of addressing this imbalance and promoting a fairer distribution of resources. Additionally, discussions around a wealth tax may also reflect broader debates about the role of government in addressing social and economic issues and the potential impact that such policies could have.

So what does the media have to do with this?

This is the question that has been on my mind. The media plays a vital role in shaping public opinion and influencing government decisions. Through their reporting and analysis, the media can draw attention to issues related to tax policy, educate the public about its implications, and ensure that both the government and businesses are held accountable for their actions. Additionally, the media can foster informed debates that contribute to the development of fair and effective tax policies, as well as influence how people perceive the system and their support for change by providing a platform for diverse viewpoints and expert opinions.

Therefore, a poll was conducted to gauge the public's opinion on the tax problem. This survey revealed the extent to which wealthy taxpayers in Aotearoa are considered essential. Moreover, it demonstrates the deep involvement of people in political matters. However, I believe that since the survey was released in the media, people could easily be swayed to agree with the majority. This means that if one proposal receives a higher vote than the other, people may be more inclined to think that it is a good idea. Conversely, if a majority of respondents disagree with a specific policy, this could lead them to believe that the policy is even more harmful. Polls can also be used to capture voices in the public realm mediated by the media. For instance, if a poll shows that a majority of people support a particular program, the media may be less likely to cover those who oppose it. (Lang et al., 1984)

The 2016 US presidential election is a great example of how surveys, political debate in the media, and the mediated public sphere are connected. Many polls leading up to the election showed Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump in the race. The media also presented the election debate in a way that supported Clinton, highlighting themes that would resonate with her supporters. But then Trump somehow won the election! Some media sources were accused of favouring one candidate over another. For instance, Fox News was accused of favouring Trump, while CNN was accused of favouring Clinton. While media coverage of the 2016 US presidential election had a negative tone for both Clinton and Trump, there were noticeable differences between the two candidates. The media's coverage of the election was controversial, with several candidates, campaigns, and supporters claiming bias against certain candidates and causes (Bradlee, 2016). This resulted in a widespread lack of trust in the media's objectivity and raised concerns about the impact of biased reporting on public opinion. Despite these accusations, it is important to acknowledge that media outlets have a responsibility to provide fair and balanced coverage, enabling us to make well-informed decisions.

Overall, it's important to note that public opinion has become more polarised in recent times. People tend to gravitate towards news sources that align with their own beliefs and values, creating an echo chamber effect. This can further contribute to the distrust in media, as individuals may be less inclined to seek out diverse perspectives and question their own biases. Therefore, media organisations must prioritise transparency and accountability in their reporting.

#Te Waha Rangatahi

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quotesfrommyreading · 1 year ago

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In a few years' time, and with very little self-reflection, we've sprinted headlong from merely searching Google to relying on it for directions, calendars, address books, video, entertainment, voice mail, and telephone calls. One billion of us have posted our most intimate details on Facebook and willingly provided social networking graphs of our friends, family, and co-workers. We've downloaded billions of apps, and we rely on them to help us accomplish everything from banking and cooking to archiving baby pictures. We connect to the Internet via our laptops, mobile phones, iPads, TiVos, cable boxes, PS3s, Blu-rays, Nintendos, HDTVs, Rokus, Xboxes, and Apple TVs.

The positive aspects of this technological evolution are manifest. Over the past hundred years, rapid advances in medical science mean that the average human life span has more than doubled and child mortality has plummeted by a factor of ten. Average per capita income adjusted for inflation around the world has tripled. Access to a high-quality education, so elusive to many for so long, is free today via Web sites such as the Khan Academy. And the mobile phone is singularly credited with leading to billions upon billions of dollars in direct economic development in nations around the globe.

The interconnectivity the Internet provides through its fundamental architecture means that disparate peoples from around the world can be brought together as never before. A woman in Chicago can play Words with Friends with a total stranger in the Netherlands. A physician in Bangalore, India, can remotely read an interpret the X-ray results of a patient in Boca Raton, Florida. A farmer in South Africa can use his mobile phone to access the same crop data as a PhD candidate at MIT. This interconnectedness is one of the Internet's greatest strengths, and as it grows in size, so too does the global network's power and utility. There is much to celebrate in our modern technological world.

While the advantages of the online world are well documented and frequently highlighted by those in the tech industry, there is also a downside to all of this interconnectivity.

Our electrical grids, air traffic control networks, fire department dispatch systems, and even the elevators at work are all critically dependent on computers. Each day, we plug more and more of our daily lives into the global information grid without pausing to ask what it all means. Mat Honan found out the hard way, as have thousands of others. But what should happen if and when the technological trappings of our modern society – the foundational tools upon which we are utterly dependent – all go away? What is humanity's backup plan? In fact, none exists.

— Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It (Marc Goodman)

#book quotes #marc goodman #future crimes: everything is connected everyone is vulnerable and what we can do about it #future crimes: inside the digital underground and the battle for our connected world #technology #computing #internet #internet of things #social media #medicine #education #electricity #aviation #google #facebook

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narrowtriangle33-blog · 3 years ago

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Conservatives, even when all of the facts are in your face, you still deny the reality of systemic racism.

"I mean really? What in the hell makes a group of people with a history of enslavement , genocide and apartheid in order to achieve what they have belive they have been so sucessful that they can lecture others. Without enslavement, genocide and aparthied, whites in America would have very little, if anything." "People in this forum have the opinion that blacks should do things like whites and if we do so, we can make it in America. So then what we need to do is orchestate a bloody coup, confiscate all property owned by whites, jail all whites who oppose the coup, write a new constitution that declare citizenship and it's protection only for non whites, make whites chattel for the forseeable future, make it illegal for whites to reald, own property or access information and create laws where if whites get out of line they can be beaten and killed." "Because this is how whites have done it." "In another forum, I stated that the root cause of the problems blacks face is white racism. One of the whites there decided to say this: “The root cause of the problems faced by most blacks today are people like you who misidentify or ignore the real problems they face to further their own personal agendas.”" "'This is another of the long, long line of idiotic comments made by right wing whites. White racism was determined to be the problem 53 years ago by the Kerner Commission."

""What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget--is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it."" ""White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II."" "But the excuse will be made about how that was 50 years ago, and that stupid ass song will be sung titled, "That was in the Past."" "On February 26, 2018, 50 years after the Kerner Commission findings, the Economic Policy Institute published a report evaluating the progress of the black community since the Kerner Report was released. It was based on a study done by the Economic Policy Institute that compared the progress of the black community in 2018 with the condition of the black community at the time of the Kerner Commission. Titled “50 years after the Kerner Commission,” the study concluded that there had been some improvements in the situation blacks faced but there were still disadvantages blacks faced that were based on race." "Following up on this, Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute wrote an op-ed published in the February 28th edition of the New York Daily News titled, “50 years after the Kerner Commission, minimal racial progress.” It had been 50 years since the commission made their recommendations at that point, yet Rothstein makes this statement: “So little has changed since 1968 that the report remains worth reading as a near-contemporary description of racial inequality.”" "So 3 years ago the same conclusion was made. "The root cause of the problems blacks face is white racism."" "On October 24, 2013, the Kellogg Foundation sent out a press release about a report they had done entitled, “The Business Case for Racial Equity”. This was a study done by the Kellogg Foundation, using information it had studied and assessed from the Center for American Progress, National Urban League Policy Institute, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the U.S. Department of Justice."

“Striving for racial equity – a world where race is no longer a factor in the distribution of opportunity – is a matter of social justice. But moving toward racial equity can generate significant economic returns as well. When people face barriers to achieving their full potential, the loss of talent, creativity, energy, and productivity is a burden not only for those disadvantaged, but for communities, businesses, governments, and the economy as a whole. Initial research on the magnitude of this burden in the United States (U.S.), as highlighted in this brief, reveals impacts in the trillions of dollars in lost earnings, avoidable public expenditures, and lost economic output.” "The Kellogg Foundation and Altarum Institute In 2011, DEMOS did a study named “The Racial Wealth Gap, Why Policy Matters”, which discussed the racial wealth gap, the problems associated with it along with solutions and outcomes if the gap did not exist. In this study DEMOS determined that the racial wealth gap was primarily driven by policy decisions." "“The U.S. racial wealth gap is substantial and is driven by public policy decisions. According to our analysis of the SIPP data, in 2011 the median white household had $111,146 in wealth holdings, compared to just $7,113 for the median Black household and $8,348 for the median Latino household. From the continuing impact of redlining on American homeownership to the retreat from desegregation in public education, public policy has shaped these disparities, leaving them impossible to overcome without racially-aware policy change.”" Harvard. "“Racial inequality in the United States today may, ultimately, be based on slavery, but it is also based on the failure of the country to take effective steps since slavery to undermine the structural racial inequality that slavery put in place. From the latter part of the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century, the Jim Crow system continued to keep Blacks “in their place,” and even during and after the civil rights era no policies were adopted to dismantle the racial hierarchy that already existed.”" "HOUSING DISCRIMINATION AS A BASIS FOR BLACK REPARATIONS, Jonathan Kaplan and Andrew Valls, Public Affairs Quarterly" "Volume 21, Number 3, July 2007" "McKinsey and Co. “It will end up costing the U.S. economy as much as $1 trillion between now and 2028 for the nation to maintain its longstanding black-white racial wealth gap, according to a report released this month from the global consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. That will be roughly 4 percent of the United States GDP in 2028—just the conservative view, assuming that the wealth growth rates of African Americans will outpace white wealth growth at its current clip of 3 percent to .8 percent annually, said McKinsey. If the gap widens, however, with white wealth growing at a faster rate than black wealth instead, it could end up costing the U.S. $1.5 trillion or 6 percent of GDP according to the firm.”" "Citigroup" "Cost Of Racism: U.S. Economy Lost $16 Trillion Because Of Discrimination, Bank Says" "Nationwide protests have cast a spotlight on racism and inequality in the United States. Now a major bank has put a price tag on how much the economy has lost as a result of discrimination against African Americans: $16 trillion." "Since 2000, U.S. gross domestic product lost that much as a result of discriminatory practices in a range of areas, including in education and access to business loans, according to a new study by Citigroup." "Specifically, the study came up with $16 trillion in lost GDP by noting four key racial gaps between African Americans and whites:" "$13 trillion lost in potential business revenue because of discriminatory lending to African American entrepreneurs, with an estimated 6.1 million jobs not generated as a result" "$2.7 trillion in income lost because of disparities in wages suffered by African Americans" "$218 billion lost over the past two decades because of discrimination in providing housing credit" "And $90 billion to $113 billion

in lifetime income lost from discrimination in accessing higher education" "Why this is just a bunch of liberal jibberish to to blacks in order to keep them voting democrat. Those aren't the problems, what we conservatives tell you is the real problem. Why if you just had a father in the home none of this would happen." "Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts"

"As employers in the U.S. tackle issues around racism, fresh attention is being given to the racial wage gap and why black men and women, in particular, still earn substantially less than their white counterparts. Nearly 56 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, "we find equal pay for equal work is still not a reality," noted Jackson Gruver, a data analyst at compensation data and software firm PayScale."

"Last year, PayScale analyzed differences in earnings between white men and men of color using data from a sample of 1.8 million employees surveyed between January 2017 and February 2019." 'Among the findings, Gruver reported: "Even as black or African-American men climb the corporate ladder, they still make less than equally qualified white men. They are the only racial/ethnic group that does not achieve pay parity with white men at some level."' "The study found that black men had the largest "uncontrolled pay gap" relative to white men, when comparing the average earnings of black men and white men in the U.S."

"On average, black men earned 87 cents for every dollar a white man earned. Hispanic workers had the next largest gap, earning 91 cents for every dollar earned by white men."

"To put that in perspective, the median salary of a white man in our sample is $72,900; the controlled median pay for black or African-American men is thus $71,500," Gruver said. "This suggests a $1,400 difference in pay that is likely attributable to race."" "So daddy lives at home and the family still makes less than whites. Because:" "NWLC calculations, based on the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for 2016, revealed that when comparing all men and women who work full time, year-round in the U.S., women were paid just 80 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. But the wage gap was even larger when looking specifically at black women who work full time, year-round—they were paid only 63 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men." "Stephen Miller, Black Workers Still Earn Less than Their White Counterparts, www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/racial-wage-gaps-persistence-poses-challenge.aspx" "So a white working couple will make 90 cents on every dollar while a black working couple makes 75 cents. To allow you to understand this reality a white female worker makes 80 cents on every dollar a white man makes. White females are demanding equal pay and rightfully so." "And you black folk really need to start taking education seriously." "Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment regardless of educational attainment" "The black unemployment rate is nearly or more than twice the white unemployment rate regardless of educational attainment. It is, and always has been, about twice the white unemployment rate; however, the depth of this racial inequality in the labor market rarely makes the headlines." "Over the last 12 months, the average unemployment rate for black college graduates has been 4.1 percent—nearly two times the average unemployment rate for white college graduates (2.4 percent) and equivalent to the unemployment rate of whites with an associate’s degree or who have not completed college (4.0 percent). The largest disparity is seen among those with less than a high school diploma: while whites with less than a high school diploma have an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent, the black unemployment rate is 16.6 percent—over two times the white average." "The broader significance of this disparity suggests a race penalty whereby blacks at each level of education have unemployment rates that are the same as or higher than less educated whites." "Valerie Wilson, Black unemployment is significantly higher than white unemployment regardless of educational attainment, www.epi.org/publication/black-unemployment-educational-attainment/" "African Americans are paid less than whites at every education level" "While the economy continues to improve and wages are finally beginning to inch up for most Americans, African Americans are still being paid less than whites at every education level. As you can see from the chart below, while a college education results in higher wages—both for whites and blacks—it does not eliminate the black-white wage gap. African Americans are still earning less than whites at every level of educational attainment. A recent EPI report, Black-white wage gaps expand with rising wage inequality, shows that this gap persists even after controlling for years of experience, region of the country, and whether one lives in an urban or rural area. In fact, since 1979, the gaps between black and white workers have grown the most among workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher—the most educated workers." "Valerie Wilson, African Americans are paid less than whites at every education level, www.epi.org/publication/african-americans-are-paid-less-than-whites-at-every-education-level/"

"But to say white racism is the cause of things no matter how much proof we show your white asses, you have some kind of idiotic ass excuse, like we are blaming whites for our failures or;" "We misdiagnose and ignore the "real" problem to fit an imaginary agenda racists in tha white community invented so they can deny how THEY are the root cause of the problem." "You right wing scrubs are always talking about responsibility." "Take some instead of running your mouths."

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gibbearish · 9 months ago

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oh my god id seen people dunking on this already but hadnt bothered to read the article, i finally have and now im going insane and had to scream about it so. if anyone wants the article highlights plus my commentary lol

"When I’ve told people this story, most of them say the same thing: You don’t seem like the type of person this would happen to. What they mean is that I’m not senile, or hysterical, or a rube ... (mentions study about scam victims being younger im skipping) ... Another study found that well-educated people or those with good jobs were just as vulnerable to scams as everyone else. Still, how could I have been such easy prey? Scam victims tend to be single, lonely, and economically insecure with low financial literacy. I am none of those things. I’m closer to the opposite." immediate eye rolling

"At about 12:30 p.m., my phone buzzed. The caller ID said it was Amazon. I answered. A polite woman with a vague accent told me she was calling from Amazon customer service to check some unusual activity on my account ... (skipping details abt her checking her order history) ... The woman, who said her name was Krista, told me the purchases had been made under my business account. “I don’t have a business account,” I said. “Hmm,” she said. “Our system shows that you have two.” Krista and I concurred that I was the victim of identity theft, and she said she would flag the fraudulent accounts and freeze their activity." ok first obviously Dont Trust Caller ID but second does amazon have some sort of business account im not aware of that this could be referring to or did this woman genuinely think the AMAZON LADY would be able to FREEZE BUSINESS BANKING ACCOUNTS FOR HER??

"Then Krista explained that Amazon had been having a lot of problems with identity theft and false accounts lately. It had become so pervasive that the company was working with a liaison at the Federal Trade Commission and was referring defrauded customers to him. Could she connect me? "Um, sure?" I said. Krista transferred the call to a man who identified himself as Calvin Mitchell. He said he was an investigator with the FTC, gave me his badge number, and had me write down his direct phone line in case I needed to contact him again. He also told me our call was being recorded. He asked me to verify the spelling of my name. Then he read me the last four digits of my Social Security number, my home address, and my date of birth to confirm that they were correct. The fact that he had my Social Security number threw me. I was getting nervous." ok like i get being spooked by that but you can't say "had my social security number" if he only had the last four. like i know that you can still do some fraud with just that much but like. you didn't even /ask/ him to confirm the first 5? as far as i can tell this is the only time she mentions someone reading off her ssn like. ?????

"He told me that 22 bank accounts, nine vehicles, and four properties were registered to my name. The bank accounts had wired more than $3 million overseas, mostly to Jamaica and Iraq. Did I know anything about this? “No,” I said. Did I know someone named Stella Suk-Yee Kwong? “I don’t think so,” I said. He texted me a photo of her ID, which he claimed had been found in a car rented under my name that was abandoned on the southern border of Texas with blood and drugs in the trunk. A home in New Mexico affiliated with the car rental had subsequently been raided, he added, and authorities found more drugs, cash, and bank statements registered to my name and Social Security number. He texted me a drug-bust photo of bags of pills and money stacked on a table. He told me that there were warrants out for my arrest in Maryland and Texas and that I was being charged with cybercrimes, money laundering, and drug trafficking." oh well if he texted you photos i guess thats fine then. HELLO? DO YOU THINK THE REAL FTC WOULD JUST TEXT YOU THEIR CLASSIFIED EVIDENCE IF THERE WAS A WARRANT OUT FOR YOUR ARREST? DO YOU THINK. THEY WOULD WARN YOU OVER THE PHONE. SO YOU WOULD HAVE TIME TO RUN AND HIDE. IF THEY THOUGHT YOU WERE PART OF A DRUG TRAFFICKING RING. also lmao @ the jump from "amazon" going "yeah this has been happening a lot, you want to talk to the guy fixing it?" to this guy going "we have 900 arrest warrants out for You Specifically" like. dang krista warn a pal next time

"My head swam. I Googled my name along with “warrant” and “money laundering,” but nothing came up. Were arrest warrants public? I wasn’t sure. Google led me to truthfinder.com, which asked for my credit-card information — nope." i cant. she. tried to google her own arrest warrant. and then. got bounced off a scam website because it asked for her credit card info. and. i guess she probably mentions this to emphasize the "i dont usually fall for scams" thing? but im just far more blown away that she literally tried to google that but not. like. "are arrest warrants public". which very swiftly brings up a wikihow article on finding out if you have one where item #1 is "check official government sites". but even after getting no results for what she did look up, she just. moves on?????

"“This is the first I’m hearing about any of this, and it’s a lot to take in.” He asked if I had ever used public or unsecured Wi-Fi. “I don’t know. Maybe?” I said. “I used the airport Wi-Fi recently.” “Ah,” he said. “That’s unfortunate. It’s how many of these breaches start.” I was embarrassed, like I’d left my fly unzipped. How could I have been so thoughtless? But also — didn’t everyone use the airport Wi-Fi?" I CANT I CANTTTTTT "have you done anything unsecure lately?" "uh i mean i guess this one thing maybe" "yep it was that uh huh got it in one👍" incredible. also maam you said you used the airport wifi recently. how recently. was it long enough for them to open 22 bank accounts 9 vehicles and 4 properties in your name as well as get busted for drug trafficking. because something tells me it was not.

"Calvin told me to listen carefully. “The first thing you must do is not tell anyone what is going on. Everyone around you is a suspect.” I almost laughed. I told him I was quite sure that my husband, who works for an affordable-housing nonprofit and makes meticulous spreadsheets for our child-care expenses, was not a secret drug smuggler. “I believe you, but even so, your communications are probably under surveillance,” Calvin said. “You cannot talk to him about this.” I quickly deleted the text messages I had sent my husband a few minutes earlier." GIRL I CANT i get not everyone has had to sit through a cybersecurity/fraud training. but this isnt even a fraud thing this is literally just . life 101 that when someone says "dont tell anyone else about this" and "this" is making you feel unsafe, you Immediately Tell Someone Else

"Calvin wanted to know how much money I currently had in my bank accounts. I told him that I had two — checking and savings — with a combined balance of a little over $80,000." maam. maam. if calvin can see all 22 of your fake bank accounts and where they've wired money. why pray tell the fuck would he not be able to see your two real ones and their balance.

"His voice took on a more urgent tone. “You must have worked very hard to save all that money,” he said. “Do not share your bank-account information with anyone. I am going to help you keep your money safe.” He said that he would transfer me to his colleague at the CIA who was the lead investigator on my case and gave me a nine-digit case number for my records. (I Googled the number. Nothing.) He said the CIA agent would tell me what to do next, and he wished me luck." im going insane over this she repeatedly mentions them giving her case numbers and how the people keep saying the calls are being monitored for quality i think to like try and highlight how little details like that were part of what made it convincing but. th. has she ever been given a case number for something like this before. those are. internal. do you think the ftc keeps public investigation records where all the people theyre investigating would need to pull it up is the goddamn case number. i don't even know what the ftc does exactly but based on Just This Article i can guarantee you right now their real cases do not have numbers accessible through google. also "his voice took on a more urgent tone" - aka "tried not to scream out loud in excitement when he realized the easiest mark of a lifetime is also loaded as fuck"

"If it was a scam, I couldn’t see the angle. It had occurred to me that the whole story might be made up or an elaborate mistake. But no one had asked me for money or told me to buy crypto; they’d only encouraged me not to share my banking information. They hadn’t asked for my personal details; they already knew them. I hadn’t been told to click on anything. Still, I had not seen a shred of evidence. I checked my bank accounts, credit cards, and credit score; nothing looked out of the ordinary." HELP ITS SO GOOD. THEY DIDNT TELL HER TO BUY CRYPTO THEREFORE SHE DIDNT THINK IT WAS A SCAM. also "they didnt ask for money" GIRL YOURE NOT OFF THE PHONE YET like i absolutely get she couldnt have actually /known/ that he was going to ask down the line but like. why would you make that call this early. you have not finished talking to them. and the way she keeps being like "i checked my stuff and saw nothing so it made me confused" AND THEN. JUST KEEPS GOING? LIKE THAT SHOULDNT CONFUSE YOU THAT SHOULD GIVE YOU THE ANSWER

"The next man who got on the line had a deeper voice and a slight British accent flecked with something I couldn’t identify. He told me his name was Michael Sarano and that he worked for the CIA on cases involving the FTC. He gave me his badge number. “I’m going to need more than that,” I said. “I have no reason to believe that any of what you’re saying is real.” “I completely understand,” he said calmly. He told me to go to the FTC home page and look up the main phone number. “Now hang up the phone, and I will call you from that number right now.” I did as he said. The FTC number flashed on my screen, and I picked up. “How do I know you’re not just spoofing this?” I asked. “It’s a government number,” he said, almost indignant. “It cannot be spoofed.” I wasn’t sure if this was true and tried Googling it, but Michael was already onto his next point." gotta be real with yall i wouldve taken this part to my grave. also this is super minor but it keeps bugging me, why does she mention everyone's accents. like she does it even when she fully can't identify where it comes from. whats up with that

"He wanted to know if I had told anyone what was going on. I admitted that I had texted my husband. “You must reassure him that everything is fine,” Michael said. “In many cases like this, we have to investigate the spouse as well, and the less he knows, the less he is implicated. From now on, you have to follow protocol if you want us to help you.”" hm yes many such cases

"Michael snowed me with the same stories Calvin had. They were consistent: the car on the Texas border, the property in New Mexico, the drugs, the bank accounts." I CANTTTTTTT SHES TRYING TO SHOW WHY IT MAKES SENSE SHE FELL FOR IT BUT . WHY WOULD YOU THINK SCAMMERS WOULDNT GET THEIR STORY STRAIGHT FIRST

"He asked if I shared my residence with anyone besides my husband and son. Then he asked more questions about my family members, including my parents, my brother, and my sister-in-law. He knew their names and where they lived." once again this feels like its given as a reason it was believable but im . he knows all that about your family but doesnt know if anyone else lives with you besides your direct family? and that doesnt raise any red flags???? he HAS YOUR ADDRESS WHY DO YOU THINK HE WOULDNT HAVE JUST CHECKED. OR JUST COME TO YOUR GODDAMN HOUSE TO ARREST YOU FOR THE BAJILLION WARRANTS IN THE FIRST PLACE!! WHY WOULD THE REAL COPS WITH A WARRANT OUT FOR YOUR ARREST IMMEDIATELY BELIEVE YOU WHEN YOU SAID YOU DIDNT DO IT AND START DISCLOSING INVESTIGATION DETAILS. AUGH

"I told him they had nothing to do with this. In fact, I was now sure I wanted to consult a lawyer. “If you talk to an attorney, I cannot help you anymore,” Michael said sternly. “You will be considered noncooperative. Your home will be raided, and your assets will be seized. You may be arrested. It’s your choice.” This seemed ludicrous. I pictured officers tramping in, taking my laptop, going through our bookshelves, questioning our neighbors, scaring my son. It was a nonstarter." LUDICROUS? LUDICROUS???? FUCKING SEEMED LUDICROUS DID IT? NOT THE PART WHERE YOURE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK TO A LAWYER. BUT THE PART WHERE IT SCARES YOUR SON???????? NO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LAWYER PART AT ALL????

”“Can I just come to your office and sort this out in person?” I said. “It’s getting late, and I need to take my son trick-or-treating soon.”” FUCKING. I GUESS NOT!!!!

"“My office is in Langley,” he said. “We don’t have enough time. We need to act immediately. I’m going to talk you through the process. It’s going to sound crazy, but we must follow protocol if we’re going to catch the people behind this.” He explained that the CIA would need to freeze all the assets in my name, including my actual bank accounts. In the eyes of the law, there was no difference between the “real” and the fraudulent ones, he said. They would also deactivate my compromised Social Security number and get me a new one. Then, by monitoring any activity under my old Social Security number and accounts, they would catch the criminals who were using my identity and I would get my life back. But until then, I would need to use only cash for my day-to-day expenses." god i cant i cant i cant i cant like later she goes on to talk about how her lawyer brother and a criminal psych professor said this guy was using coerced confession /interrogation techniques by slowly adjusting her sense of reality, so by this point obviously the frog is simmering as hell but i just. no red flags about having to deactivate your ssn and get you a new one? not one? have you tried putting it in rice first, or maybe rebooting it? also like no shade to your lawyer brother or that professor but like to me this whole thing is just. high pressure sales tactics. youre just rich as fuck so every other time youve fallen for it it hasnt registered bc Its One Banana Michael, How Much Could It Cost? $10?

"He asked me how much cash I thought I would need to support myself for a year if necessary. My assets could be frozen for up to two years if the investigation dragged on, he added. There could be a trial; I might need to testify. These things take time. “I don’t know, $50,000?” I said. I wondered how I would receive paychecks without a bank account. Would I have to take time off from work? I did some mental calculations of how much my husband could float us and for how long." IM INSANE FIFTY THOUSAND IS YOUR MINIMUM? WITH YOUR HUSBANDS HELP?? YOURE UNAWARE PAYCHECKS CAN BE CASHED AND NOT JUST DEPOSITED????? YOU WRITE FINANCIAL ADVICE

"“Okay,” he said. “You need to go to the bank and get that cash out now. You cannot tell them what it is for. In one of my last cases, the identity thief was someone who worked at the bank.”" i'm dying not the many such cases again

"Michael told me to keep the phone on speaker so we would remain in contact. “It’s important that I monitor where this money goes from now on. Remember, all of your assets are part of this investigation."" hm yes no one had asked for money. at this point im starting to believe the word "ask" earlier was deliberate and she thought it had to be phrased as optional to be a scam because how did she consider it earlier then at no point while Getting The Money go "huh, i have money, and they want me to give it to them, maybe this is what people meant by asking for money"

"Then he told me that one of his colleagues would meet me at my apartment at 5 p.m. to guide me through the next steps. “You can’t send a complete stranger to my home,” I said, my voice rising. “My 2-year-old son will be here.” “Let me worry about that,” he said. “It’s my job. But if you don’t cooperate, I cannot keep you safe." It’s impossible to explain why I accepted this logic." YEAH NO KIDDING??? HES IN LANGLEY TF IS HE GONNA DO TO SAVE YOUR KID FROM HIS COLLEAGUE

"I asked the teller for $50,000. The woman behind the thick glass window raised her eyebrows, disappeared into a back room, came back with a large metal box of $100 bills, and counted them out with a machine. Then she pushed the stacks of bills through the slot along with a sheet of paper warning me against scams. I thanked her and left." ok to be fair i think this one is here to poke fun at herself for not paying attention to it because it's Just So Ironic but like. bruh

"As I walked back to my apartment, something jolted me out of my trance, and I became furious. No government agency would establish this as “protocol.” It was preposterous. “I need to speak with Michael,” I told the woman on the phone. He got on right away. “I don’t even believe that you’re a CIA agent,” I said. “What you’re asking me to do is completely unreasonable.” He sighed. “I’m sending you a photo of my badge right now,” he said. “I don’t know what else to tell you. You can trust me, and I will help you. Or you can hang up and put yourself and your family in danger. Do you really want to take that risk with a young child?" (skipping some stuff) A picture of Michael’s badge appeared on my phone. I had no way of verifying it; it could easily have been Photoshopped. “I don’t trust you at all,” I said to Michael. “But it doesn’t seem like I have any other choice.”" i need you all to picture me screaming into a pillow right now

"Michael told me to label it with my name, my case number, my address, a locker number he read to me, and my signature." AHAHAHA sorry i just love him slipping in a copy of her signature to forge at the end. at that point might as well right

"“My colleague will be there soon. He is an undercover CIA agent, and he will secure the money for you,” he said. What exactly would that entail? I asked. “Tonight, we will close down your Social Security number, and you will lose access to your bank accounts,” he explained. “Tomorrow, you’ll need to go to the Social Security office and get a new Social Security number. We’ll secure this money for you in a government locker and hand-deliver a Treasury check for the same amount. You can cash the check and use it for your expenses until the investigation is over.” “Why can’t I just use this cash?” I asked. “Why do you have to take it and give me a check?” “Because all of your assets under your current identity are part of the investigation,” he said. “You are being charged with money laundering. If we secure this cash and then issue you a government check under your new Social Security number, that will be considered clean money.”" now why would you need to do that it's already been laundered

"“I’ll need to see your colleague’s badge,” I said. “I’m not just going to give $50,000 of my money to someone I don’t know.” “Undercover agents don’t carry badges,” he said, as if I’d asked the CIA to bring me a Happy Meal. “They’re undercover. Remember, you are probably being watched. The criminals cannot know that a CIA agent is there.” In a twisted way, this made some amount of sense to me. Or maybe I had lost my grip on reality so completely that I was willing to resign myself to this new version of it. Most important, I didn’t know what else to do. Even if Michael wasn’t working for the CIA (which struck me as more and more likely), he was sending a man to our address. I felt a sickening dread that he might ask to come inside." boy am i glad that she said she was losing her grip on reality at this point because otherwise i would explode on the spot

"A little after 6 p.m., Michael told me to go downstairs. His colleague was arriving. My husband had just come home from work and was reading to our son. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?” he asked as I put my coat on. I motioned to the phone and shushed him. Then I whispered, “I have to go downstairs and meet a guy who’s helping with the identity-theft case. I’ll explain more later.” He frowned and silently mouthed, “What?” I told him I had to go." JAHDKSBFKSBFKSBKFJSKFBSKFHSKRBKWHFKENFM you just know the husband lays awake at night thinking about this moment still

"As I walked back inside, Michael texted me a photo of a Treasury check made out to me for $50,000 and told me a hard copy would be hand-delivered to me in the morning. He was working on setting up my appointment with the Social Security office. “You will receive a confirmation text shortly,” he said. “Stay on the line until you do.” I felt oddly comforted by this. An appointment would give me something legitimate, an actual connection to a government agency." i can,t does she. think texts cant be faked

"I took my son trick-or-treating, my phone on speaker in my pocket. (skipping junk) At one point, I checked to see if Michael was still there; his female colleague answered and said he’d be back soon. Then, when we got home and I checked again, the line was dead. I panicked and called back. The woman answered. “Michael is busy,” she said. “He’ll call you in the morning.”" I CANT SHE SPENT THE WHOLE TRICK OR TREATING WAITING FOR THE TEXT AND DIDN'T. REALIZE? DID YOU ONLY TRICK OR TREAT FOR LIKE 5 MINUTES? HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT

"I went into my bedroom and shut the door, feeling my face grow hot. I had a physical sensation of scales falling from my eyes; the room shimmered around me, spots raining from the ceiling. I saw the whole day peel away, like the layers of an onion — Michael, the FTC officer, the Amazon call — revealing my real life, raw and exposed, at the center. “Oh my God,” I said, my hands tingling. “You are lying to me. Michael was lying. You just took my money and I’m never getting it back.” That wasn’t true, the woman said. She understood that I was upset. She was sorry. Everything would be fine. “You’re a fucking liar,” I hissed, and hung up." i just cant the fact that her last straw was. not getting the ssn appointment

"Through choking sobs, I told my husband what had happened. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, incredulous. “I would have stopped you.” (skipping ahead to another part from way later) My husband felt helpless; he still doesn’t like to talk about it." YEAH I BET HE DOESNT? IF MY WIFE WHO WAS THE MAIN BREADWINNER GAVE AWAY $50,000 WITHOUT EVEN TALKING TO ME I WOULD ALSO BE A BIT TOUCHY ABOUT IT. like once again you KNOW this man thinks about that moment before she left every single day now

"“No government agency will ever ask you for money,” one cop informed me, as if I’d never heard it before. I wanted to scream, “I know.” Instead, I said, “It didn’t really feel like he was asking.”" WAIT OH MY GOD I DIDNT NOTICE THIS THE FIRST TIME I READ THROUGH I CANT BELIEVE SHE LITERALLY DID THINK IT MEANT IT HAD TO BE A REQUEST. I THOUGHT I WAS MOSTLY JOKING WHEN I SAID THAT EARLIER IM KSNFKSJFKDND

"Were my tendencies toward people-pleasing, rule following, and conflict aversion far worse than I’d ever thought, even pathological?" oh my god guys, maybe... maybe the reason i got scammed is that. im just too nice of a person. maybe even.... in a scary mental illness way........

"I worried it would harm my professional reputation. I still do." YOURE. A FINANCIAL ADVICE WRITER. IT SHOULD

"Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. It took me years to save, stashing away a few thousand every time I got paid for a big project. Part of it was money I had received from my grandfather, an inheritance he took great pains to set up for his grandchildren before his death." god can you imagine having multiple thousands of dollars to save all at once. on more than one occasion even. also obvious inheritance is obvious (and yes, this is the one time she mentions that, lmao)

"Sometimes I imagine how I would have spent it if I had to get rid of it in a day. I could have paid for over a year’s worth of child care up front." ok this is the part i wanted to get to the most because i did the math, "over a year's worth" i think means between 13 and 17 months bc past that it makes more sense to say a year and a half, so this woman's CHILDCARE ALONE. is likely anywhere from $35,000 - $46,000 a year. which also means that of the $50,000 she withdrew, she either a) expected her whole family to survive the year on the remaining $15k - $4k, b) was planning on cutting out childcare entirely (doubtful given how rich people are), or c) took the guy literally when he asked how much she needed to support herself for a year and that was her estimate for Literally Just Her. fuckin rich people man

"I could have housed multiple families for months. Perhaps, inadvertently, I am; I occasionally wonder what the scammers did with it." me when i cast myself as the rich people robin hood steals from totally not as copium for getting scammed. also just the vibe of "i couldve helped the poors:(( i mean i didnt but like i couldve:(((( too bad i dont have money anymore or i totally would:((((((((."

"Initially, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to afford my taxes this year, but then my accountant told me I could write off losses due to theft." confirmed doesnt do her own taxes. also if you recall she said she had $80,000 total which means that she had. $30,000 left over. and was scared that wouldn't be enough to pay her taxes. half the people i know don't even MAKE that much in a year like. can you imagine having this kind of life

"When I did tell friends what had happened, it seemed like everyone had a horror story. One friend’s dad, a criminal-defense attorney, had been scammed out of $1.2 million. Another person I know, a real-estate developer, was duped into wiring $450,000 to someone posing as one of his contractors. Someone else knew a Wall Street executive who had been conned into draining her 401(k) by some guy she met at a bar." I CANT I CANT I CANT i cant tell if she only listed off other rich fucks as part of her like "see smart people do fall for it all the time" thing and thinks well paying job = smart or if she just Literally Doesn't Know A Single Person Anywhere Near The Poverty Line. or if she does and just none of them had been scammed? either way extremely funny

"If I had to pinpoint a moment that made me think my scammers were legitimate, it was probably when they read me my Social Security number. Now I know that all kinds of personal information — your email address, your kids’ names and birthdays, even your pets’ names — are commonly sold on the dark web. Of course, the scammers could also have learned about my son from a 30-second perusal of my Instagram feed." SOLD ON THE DARK WEB HELLO? THEYRE ON THE REGULAR WEB YOU LITERALLY POINTED IT OUT YOURSELF. AND IT WASN'T YOUR WHOLE SOCIAL!!!!!!!!!

"It also mattered that I was kept on the phone for so long. People start to break down cognitively after a few hours of interrogation." im not putting the whole interrogation part here because its long and i already explained the important part earlier but like. ok sure ill accept that this explains why she was so compliant the last section, but . there were several hours before that,

"Either way, I have to accept that someone waged psychological warfare on me, and I lost. For now, I just don’t answer my phone." PLEASE you cannot sign off by calling that psychological warfare. that was a light tussle at best. you tried thumb wrestling someone and got flung across the room in seconds. krista from amazon LOOKED at you wrong and you immediately collapsed into a quivering puddle on the floor. you do not get to spin this as "anyone can fall for a scam" when what you really mean is "please please no one think im as dumb as i used to think you stupid poors are i promise im different."

anyways. incredibly annoying read 10/10

goodness gracious

#long post #(?) i guess #its all under the cut but it is huge

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tlatollotl · 4 years ago

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Finding the tomb of an ancient king full of golden artifacts, weapons and elaborate clothing seems like any archaeologist’s fantasy. But searching for them, Gino Caspari can tell you, is incredibly tedious.

Dr. Caspari, a research archaeologist with the Swiss National Science Foundation, studies the ancient Scythians, a nomadic culture whose horse-riding warriors terrorized the plains of Asia 3,000 years ago. The tombs of Scythian royalty contained much of the fabulous wealth they had looted from their neighbors. From the moment the bodies were interred, these tombs were popular targets for robbers; Dr. Caspari estimates that more than 90 percent of them have been destroyed.

He suspects that thousands of tombs are spread across the Eurasian steppes, which extend for millions of square miles. He had spent hours mapping burials using Google Earth images of territory in what is now Russia, Mongolia and Western China’s Xinjiang province. “It’s essentially a stupid task,” Dr. Caspari said. “And that’s not what a well-educated scholar should be doing.”

As it turned out, a neighbor of Dr. Caspari’s in the International House, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, had a solution. The neighbor, Pablo Crespo, at the time a graduate student in economics at City University of New York who was working with artificial intelligence to estimate volatility in commodity prices, told Dr. Caspari that what he needed was a convolutional neural network to search his satellite images for him. The two bonded over a shared academic philosophy, of making their work openly available for the benefit of the greater scholarly community, and a love of heavy metal music. Over beers in the International House bar, they began a collaboration that put them at the forefront of a new type of archaeological analysis.

A convolutional neural network, or C.N.N., is a type of artificial intelligence that is designed to analyze information that can be processed as a grid; it is especially well suited to analyzing photographs and other images. The network sees an image as a grid of pixels. The C.N.N. that Dr. Crespo designed starts by giving each pixel a rating based on how red it is, then another for green and for blue. After rating each pixel according to a variety of additional parameters, the network begins to analyze small groups of pixels, then successively larger ones, looking for matches or near-matches to the data it has been trained to spot.

Working in their spare time, the two researchers ran 1,212 satellite images through the network for months, asking it to look for circular stone tombs and to overlook other circular, tomblike things such as piles of construction debris and irrigation ponds.

At first they worked with images that spanned roughly 2,000 square miles. They used three-quarters of the imagery to train the network to understand what a Scythian tomb looks like, correcting the system when it missed a known tomb or highlighted a nonexistent one. They used the rest of the imagery to test the system. The network correctly identified known tombs 98 percent of the time.

Creating the network was simple, Dr. Crespo said. He wrote it in less than a month using the programming language Python and at no cost, not including the price of the beers. Dr. Caspari hopes that their creation will give archaeologists a way to find new tombs and to identify important sites so that they can be protected from looters.

Other convolutional neural networks are beginning to automate a variety of repetitive tasks that are usually foisted on to graduate students. And they are opening new windows on to the past. Some of the jobs that these networks are inheriting include classifying pottery fragments, locating shipwrecks in sonar images and finding human bones that are for sale, illegally, on the internet.

“Netflix is using this kind of technique to show you recommendations,” Dr. Crespo, now a senior data scientist for Etsy, said. “Why shouldn’t we use it for something like saving human history?”

Gabriele Gattiglia and Francesca Anichini, both archaeologists at the University of Pisa in Italy, excavate Roman Empire-era sites, which entails analyzing thousands of broken bits of pottery. In Roman culture nearly every type of container, including cooking vessels and the amphoras used for shipping goods around the Mediterranean, was made of clay, so pottery analysis is essential for understanding Roman life.

The task involves comparing pottery sherds to pictures in printed catalogs. Dr. Gattiglia and Dr. Anichini estimate that only 20 percent of their time is spent excavating sites; the rest is spent analyzing pottery, a job for which they are not paid. “We started dreaming about some magic tool to recognize pottery on an excavation,” Dr. Gattiglia said.

That dream became the ArchAIDE project, a digital tool that will allow archaeologists to photograph a piece of pottery in the field and have it identified by convolutional neural networks. The project, which received financing from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, now involves researchers from across Europe, as well as a team of computer scientists from Tel Aviv University in Israel who designed the C.N.N.s.

The project involved digitizing many of the paper catalogs and using them to train a neural network to recognize different types of pottery vessels. A second network was trained to recognize the profiles of pottery sherds. So far, ArchAIDE can identify only a few specific pottery types, but as more researchers add their collections to the database the number of types is expected to grow.

“I dream of a catalog of all types of ceramics,” Dr. Anichini said. “I don’t know if it is possible to complete in this lifetime.”

Saving time is one of the biggest advantages of using convolutional neural networks. In marine archaeology, ship time is expensive, and divers cannot spend too much time underwater without risking serious pressure-related injuries. Chris Clark, an engineer at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., is addressing both problems by using an underwater robot to make sonar scans of the seafloor, then using a convolutional neural network to search the images for shipwrecks and other sites. In recent years he has been working with Timmy Gambin, an archaeologist at the University of Malta, to search the floor of the Mediterranean Sea around the island of Malta.

Their system got off to a rough start: On one of its first voyages, they ran their robot into a shipwreck and had to send a diver down to retrieve it. Things improved from there. In 2017, the network identified what turned out to be the wreck of a World War II-era dive bomber off the coast of Malta. Dr. Clark and Dr. Gambin are now working on another site that was identified by the network, but did not want to discuss the details until the research has gone through peer-review.

Shawn Graham, a professor of digital humanities at Carleton University in Ottawa, uses a convolutional neural network called Inception 3.0, designed by Google, to search the internet for images related to the buying and selling of human bones. The United States and many other countries have laws requiring that human bones held in museum collections be returned to their descendants. But there are also bones being held by people who have skirted these laws. Dr. Graham said he had even seen online videos of people digging up graves to feed this market.

“These folks who are being bought and sold never consented to this,” Dr. Graham said. “This does continued violence to the communities from which these ancestors have been removed. As archaeologists, we should be trying to stop this.”

He made some alterations to Inception 3.0 so that it could recognize photographs of human bones. The system had already been trained to recognize objects in millions of photographs, but none of those objects were bones; he has since trained his version on more than 80,000 images of human bones. He is now working with a group called Countering Crime Online, which is using neural networks to track down images related to the illegal ivory trade and sex trafficking.

Dr. Crespo and Dr. Caspari said that the social sciences and humanities could benefit by incorporating the tools of information technology into their work. Their convolutional neural network was easy to use and freely available for anyone to modify to suit their own research needs. In the end, they said, scientific advances come down to two things.

“Innovation really happens at the intersections of established fields,” Dr. Caspari said. Dr. Crespo added: “Have a beer with your neighbor every once in a while.”

#archaeology #artificial intelligence #neural networks

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comrade-meow · 3 years ago

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The French Utopian Socialist Charles Fourier wrote that ‘One could judge the degree of civilization of a country by the social and political position of its women’.

The details of the Sarah Everard abduction, rape and murder at the hands of a serving Metropolitan Police Officer have highlighted just how bad the social and political position of women in Britain remains. This is the horrific story of a young woman subject to supposed arrest by a policeman and then to the most terrifying ordeal.

However the case has wider implications than the personal tragedy of Sarah and her family and loved ones. It speaks to the position of women in society and the role of those supposed to protect us. It also suggests that the widespread lip service to women’s rights across society does not match the reality.

Commentary from many about the case seems in denial about the fact that it was perpetrated by someone who was actually a policeman, not someone impersonating one. He used his powers to handcuff and abduct her. The advice that women in such situations should call 999, flag down a bus (even in London an unlikely possibility) or refuse to get in the car is simply unrealistic. Anyone who has tried resisting arrest or questioning why it is happening knows exactly the response we are likely to get from the Met and other police forces.

Not only that, it suggests that women should change their behaviour whereas it is the police and other institutions of state who should be changing theirs. Couzens had been accused three times of indecent exposure (twice just days before the Everard abduction). None of this affected his police career, which involved him guarding at various times civil nuclear buildings and embassies, including the US embassy, a job which allowed him to carry firearms. It has now been revealed that he was on duty in parliament on several occasions. He was in a WhatsApp group with other policemen which contained racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. Those in the Met were not immediately suspended at this discovery, although those in other forces were.

The record of the Metropolitan Police is shocking over this – the lack of proper vetting of this man, the assignment to an armed unit, the knowledge of other officers about his sexual offences, the brutal attacks on women during the vigil following Sarah’s death. Those who retain illusions that women in high places are empathetic to others should consider that both Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who presided over this, and Priti Patel, that most right wing of Home Secretaries determined to hang on to her, are women.

They preside over a deeply racist and sexist police force, whose culture reflects a society which persistently refuses to allow equality for women and black people. Despite periodic outcries over a series of scandals, long inquiries and investigations and some minor changes, this results in a thoroughly discriminatory ‘canteen culture’ and a policing policy which targets and criminalises ethnic minorities and treats women all too often as a series of degraded stereotypes. The Spycops revelations about undercover police having affairs with women political activists show the contempt in which women are held. Prosecutions for domestic violence and rape are at all time lows, and police involvement in domestic violence in their own relationships is above the average.

Shocking revelations in the Sunday Mirror showed that 26 Metropolitan Police officers have committed sex crimes since 2016, including rape and possessing indecent images of children, and two were sent to prison in April, after Sarah’s murder.

Surely at the very minimum Cressida Dick should resign, the Police Bill, which gives them more restrictive powers, should be withdrawn, and there should be a series of demands to improve women’s safety from the police – which doesn’t involve more police! At root, the role of the police is to protect those who own wealth and power in society. The poor, the oppressed, trade unionists, have always been subject to the sort of hostile policing that reflects that.

If the Everard case raises so many questions about the nature of the police it also does so about the treatment of women in capitalist society. As many commentaries have endorsed in recent months, every woman fears the threat of attack. Nearly every woman has suffered some sort of sexual attack or harassment. The high-profile cases around Me Too are only the tip of the iceberg, with women at work subject to sexual harassment and women in the home facing violence – two women a week in Britain die at the hands of partners.

There’s also the economic violence: women’s pay remains much lower than men’s, they carry the burden of domestic labour, they are often denied maternity rights, they work in some of the lowest paid and least valued jobs, their healthcare and reproductive rights are under threat.

There is a common narrative that women have won their rights – that there was the campaign for the vote more than 100 years ago, then the women’s liberation movement in the 60s and 70s which achieved women’s economic and social independence. There only need to be minor adjustments for full equality – some gender pay gap reporting, more women in high profile positions, diversity policies. The reality is that, despite the very real advances for women in recent decades, these are structural inequalities which go to the heart of capitalist society.

Women’s oppression is rooted in their role in the family and the social reproduction of labour. It is therefore central to the whole system and we will need to overthrow the system to begin to end it. The rights that we have won had to be forced from capital and many of them have still not been realised.

I found it incredible that Labour MP David Lammy said last week that some women were ‘dinosaurs’ who were ‘hoarding their rights’. The statement shows a complete ignorance and disregard for the actual situation of women. The term also suggests that women have a surfeit of rights, some of which they can give away. This is insulting to women and does not help the debate over trans and women’s rights.

The truth is that we can – and have to - respect the rights of both women and trans people without suggesting that women have to give up some of their rights in order for others to gain. Indeed that would only serve to worsen women’s oppression. In the light of the Sarah Everard and other terrible cases of rape and murder involving women like Bibaa Henry, her sister Nicole Smallman, and most recently young teacher Sabina Nessa, this is not the time to suggest a retreat from the right to have single sex spaces for women.

Instead we should be looking at how we defend the rights oppressed groups already have and discussing how we can extend them. That isn’t done by denigrating women or suggesting that because they are the largest oppressed group they face fewer problems. In fact their oppression is at the root of all sexual oppression.

#Anglo.txt

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qqueenofhades · 5 years ago

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Can you please explain why you like Warren more than Sanders? I was too young to vote in 2016 but I would've voted Bernie in that primary, and I plan to do so this year(I'll vote whoever the Democrat party chooses in the real election, I understand the dangers of not doing so). I don't know much about the differences in their policies except that Sanders is slightly more leftist and a relatively simple comparison between the two would help. And how big of a factor should his age play in my vote?

Thanks for asking!

I think the best place for you to start, if you want everything explained in depth on each issue far more eloquently than I can, is to simply read the Political positions of Bernie Sanders and Political positions of Elizabeth Warren pages on Wikipedia, which outline their positions on pretty much everything you could think of. The main difference in how people perceive them lies in the fact that Bernie has been a democratic socialist for his entire political career, while Warren became a Democrat in 1996, and is viewed by the hard left as still being too pro-capitalist and/or pro-military and/or too ethically suspect and/or untrustworthy and/or could change her mind and betray them again. For a certain subset of people for whom purity of ideology and/or the strength of conviction is only ever demonstrated by never changing your mind and only ever having held the right positions, the fact that Warren’s political positions have changed over time seems dangerous, and that she isn’t as purely “socialist” as Bernie means that she is, in their eyes, a lesser candidate. As I said in the earlier ask, we will never have an American president who is completely free from the toxic elements of American ideology. There are things that I don’t fully agree with Warren on, absolutely. But lashing into her as a secret spineless corporate shill who would completely betray the progressive movement if she was elected has nothing to do with reality, certainly nothing that reflects her actual rhetoric and voting record, and once again demonstrates the tendency of a certain subset of Bernie supporters to completely refuse anything less than their candidate no matter what, and that is… frustrating.

Let me be clear: Warren and Sanders are my top two choices. Policy-wise, they’re the only candidates proposing anything I want to actually see enacted. I completely support anyone who wants to vote for either of them in the primary, and indeed, I ended my last post by strongly urging the anon (and anyone else who identified ideologically with Bernie) to vote for him in the primaries. I myself get a cold shudder at the idea of having to vote for Biden or Buttigieg as the Democratic nominee (even if I don’t think it’ll happen). I don’t want to have to do it, which is why I keep urging progressives to turn out in droves and vote their conscience in the primaries: that way, we won’t even end up in a situation where we have to hold our nose and vote for a nominee we don’t really like, don’t support, and who will continue more ineffective centrist policies that don’t address the real problems in the country. If progressives vote in sufficient numbers, we will get a progressive nominee that we can actively vote for and feel good about, rather than one that we can barely stomach. If we sit home and only let the moderate/centrist white Democrats vote in the primary, that is the nominee that we will end up with. Gross.

So in other words, I am not here to stoke the worrying and self-inflicted factionalism ongoing between Sanders and Warren supporters who have to outdo each other with My Ideology Is Better Than Your Ideology. That was exactly what I was critiquing in the earlier answer. I think both candidates align well with my values, I would vote for either one of them without qualms, and I think they are proposing policies that broadly target the major issues at hand. Destroying one to try to advance the other is unnecessary, counterproductive, and doing half the Trump/GOP machine’s work for them. It is a hollow moral victory in shouting echo chambers on the internet that has no real-world value and helps no one at all in the long run, except for feeling smug that you have The Most Pure Doctrine. Yay. Still not helping us get rid of Trump. So vote for whichever one you want in the primary, and then vote for whoever wins in the general. Like I said above, if progressives turn out in sufficient numbers, we won’t end up with a terrible candidate in the first place.

I like Warren because she has shown a consistent willingness to learn, grow, to take feedback and adjust her policies accordingly, to engage with community leaders, and, frankly, to demonstrate a more nuanced awareness of intersectionality and identity. Bernie has a tendency to struggle with differentiating class and race, dismisses “identity politics” and can confuse it with tokenism, and still holds the position that, essentially, socialism and economic justice will fix everything. Even the left-leaning The Guardian has found some grounds to criticize him on how he has handled this. I think that Warren is more aware on some levels as to how multiple factors inform an individual’s politics, not just economics and social class. But guess what: these are still minor quibbles and the kind of nitpicking that I get to do at primary stage! I’m still completely happy to vote for the man in a general election! Nothing that I say about Bernie here disqualifies him from my support if he’s the progressive candidate that comes out on top! And none of what I say below about Warren should be read as some sort of insidious attempt to prove that Bernie doesn’t hold these positions too/passive-aggressive slam on him, etc. etc. I’m simply explaining what I like about her particularly.

I like Warren because her plans are detailed, workable, based on extensive research, highlight multiple values that I have in common with her, and give practical recommendations as to how to implement them within the existing framework of the American political system (as well as, where needed, changing it radically). Her policy documents specifically highlight the African-American maternal mortality crisis, valuing the work and lives of women of color, protecting reproductive rights and access to care/abortion services, funding, respecting, and supporting Native Americans and indigenous people, supporting the LGBTQ community on many fronts, cancelling all student debt on day one of her presidency (as an academic with a lot of student debt, this is a big issue for me), confronting white nationalist terrorism, getting rid of the electoral college, regulating and breaking up market monopolies, taxing the shit out of billionaires, holding capitalism accountable, fighting global financial corruption and “dark money” in international politics, introducing immediate debt relief for Puerto Rico, overhauling immigration policy to make it more fair and welcoming, fighting for climate change especially as a racial justice issue, ending private prisons and federal defense budget bloat, recognizing that just throwing endless money at national security issues has not fixed them, drastically revising and ending a foreign policy currently based on endless money and endless wars, breaking up Wall Street economic monopolies and misbehaviour, transitioning to 100% clean energy and Medicare for All, reinvesting in public schools, and… I could go on, but you get the gist. She is a lawyer, professor, and senator with public and professional expertise in many relevant fields. She used to teach bankruptcy law and economic policy. She is smart and tough, but can break complicated concepts down and explain them clearly. She has earned the endorsement of black women’s groups and over 100 Latino leaders. And: yes. It’s time for us to have a female president. It just is. I feel strongly about it.

Warren was recently attacked for putting out a plan related to how the U.S. military could drastically reduce its wasteful carbon footprint and help combat climate change, as this was clearly proof that she was in fact just a lip-service progressive and didn’t want to, you know, apparently abolish it entirely and pretend it didn’t exist and personally tell everyone in the military what a bad person they were. I am not a fan of anything about the U.S. military-industrial complex. But if you don’t recognize that it’s largely composed of poor, working-class people of color and/or economically deprived people who have no other career option, that veterans are discarded instantly the moment they’re no use to the war and propaganda machine and that any politician is going to have to reckon with this, and that you can’t snap your fingers and make it go away, then that’s also not helping. Warren has also been attacked for not wanting to get rid of capitalism entirely, as if that is a remotely feasible or workable option in 21st-century America. She has voted for and suggested regulations and wealth taxes and major restructuring and everything else you can think of, she proposed and founded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and so on. But for some people, this still is Just Not Good Enough. Which…. fine. You don’t have to vote for her in the primary if she’s not ideologically the closest candidate to you. Once again, the point of the primary is to pick whichever candidate you like the most and to do everything to help them win, so you aren’t stuck with a bad choice when it comes time for the general. But acting like this is a huge and horrible disqualifier and that she’s an awful corporate hack who will just be terrible (her main crime not being Bernie/competing against him) has nothing to do with reality, and everything with having to win internet woke points and ideological militancy arguments. It’s not helpful.

Since the earlier post went viral, I am now getting random hate or completely bizarre misinterpretations of my argument or whatever else, none of which I will answer and all of which will be deleted out of hand, because I am just not interested in trading insults about this and/or engaging in pointless arguments with people who have already made up their mind. But for some people, it’s apparently really threatening to say that if you only vote for the best ideology in the primaries and then quit in a snit fit before the general election, you’re not helping. You’re not doing anything useful. Everyone who was reblogging the post and agreeing with me was around my age or older; everyone who was reblogging it to slam me was usually a lot younger. And I’m glad that 21-year-olds feel that winning the ideology battle is more important than having a functional government, but: sorry. I’m old and I don’t have to listen to that, and I’m not going to. Perfect cannot be the enemy of good, or even better than what we’ve got now. And let’s be clear: anything would be better than what we have now. It would directly save lives and impact policies, and if you can’t admit that because you’re too hung up on how Elizabeth Warren might Be A Capitalist Pig Who Likes Billionaires, please, please get off the internet and go outside.

Would Warren, Sanders, or even Buttigieg or Biden lock immigrant children in cages and concentration camps at the border and commit deliberate slow-motion genocide by denial of care and access? No. Would they actively roll back Obama-era regulations protecting LGBTQ rights, the environment, climate change activism, and anything else you remotely identify as a progressive cause? No. Would they start a needless war with Iran, build a border wall, stoke Nazis and white supremacists, pander to all the worst parts of American insularism and xenophobia, collude with Russia, lie about everything, destroy all regulations and policies that don’t benefit anyone but the rich, white, and male, fill their administration with convicted felons and homophobes and people who want to rob us blind, and be aggressively incompetent, unprepared, malicious, stupid, angry, and dangerous to both the country and the world? No. So the various attempts to claim that there is “no real difference” between the presidency of a non-Sanders Democrat and Trump are… please, please sit down for a moment and think about what you’re saying. I realize this is, again, a hard position to hold when you depend completely on having The Right Ideology, and nuance, complexity, evolving positions, and willingness to be open to new ideas are not things that are valued in zealots on either the right or the left. I don’t know what fantasyland these people are living in, when they act like not voting for a non-Sanders Democrat against Trump would be a great moral victory or proof that they’re too good for the world that the rest of us have to live in, or think that the election into being about some magical chance to make the entire capitalist global military-industrial system vanish. It won’t. It won’t even if Sanders wins the presidency. Change only comes slowly and systematically.

This is once again, long. So to summarize:

1) If you want to understand the differences between Bernie and Warren from a place outside just what I say, go and read their policy summaries on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Look on their websites, compare their plans, do your own research, and don’t fall into the ideology-war trap just for the sake of looking better on internet arguments.

2) Vote for Bernie in the primary! Please! We want a progressive candidate who will make genuine change! We don’t want one who is just a moderate Republican but has to be a Democrat because moderate Republicans no longer exist!

3) I like Warren for many reasons and will be voting for her in the primary, but will vote for Bernie (or anyone else) who wins the primary and emerges as the nominee. I only wish that all Bernie supporters would give the reciprocal guarantee. There is a subset – again, not all – who are only loyal to him and nothing else, and who seem to feel that if they can’t have him, not voting is a better or more “moral” choice, even if the alternative is Trump.

4) For me, Bernie’s age is an issue. I can’t answer for what it might be for you, but he would turn 80 in the year he was sworn into office. He also did have a heart attack and would have a year of grueling campaigning to go.

5) Factionalism and ideology wars and loyalty to one person, rather than even trying to consider the lives and people that are at stake, that have already been lost, and that continue to suffer from Trumpism, is not helpful, not empathetic, and not more moral. You can sit and feel self-righteous all you want, good for you. People are dying. Refusing to make a change because it can’t be all the change, all at once, is not and will never be how this works.

Anyway. I hope that helped you.

#politics for ts #long post #as a note #any further hate sent to me will continue to be deleted out of hand #go outside and pet a puppy #ideology is great #but it cannot be confused with morality #or replace actual action #the system is terrible #but it is the system that exists #and change will not be overnight #in any case #so yes #okay that's really enough politics for... a while #i think i need some happy fandom land for a bit #stupidassh0le #ask

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knifeonmars · 4 years ago

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Capsule Reviews, February 2021

Here's some things I've been reading.

The Curse of Brimstone

DC's New Age of Heroes books, emerging from the beginning of Scott Snyder's creative-flameout-as-crossover-event Metal, mostly constituted riffs on Marvel heroes like the Fantastic Four (in The Terrifics) or the Hulk (in Damage). The Curse of Brimstone is a riff on Ghost Rider. It's... uneven. The first volume is generally pretty good, and when Phillip Tan is drawing it, as he does the first three and a half issues, it's gorgeous and unique, when he departs though, the quality takes a nose dive. None of the replacement artists, including the great Denis Cowan, can quite fill his shoes, and the story gets old fast. Guy makes a deal with the devil (or rather, a devil-like inhabitant of the "Dark Multiverse" as a not horribly handled tie-in to the conceits of Metal), realizes it's a raw deal, and rebels. The characters are flat, lots of time is spent with the main character's sister haranguing him to not use his powers (it is, in my humble opinion, something of a cardinal sin to have a character whose primary role is telling other characters to stop doing interesting things), too many potboiler "I know you're still in there!/I can feel this power consuming me!" exchanges, a couple of underwhelming guest spots (including a genuinely pointless appearance by the old, white, boring Doctor Fate) too many flashbacks, and not enough of the action. There's potential in the classic demonic hero rebelling plotline and its link to the liminal spaces of the DC universe, forgotten towns and economic depression, but the wheels come off this series pretty much as soon as Tan leaves. The really disappointing this is that the series is clearly built as an artistic showcase, so after Tan's shockingly early departure, the main appeal of the series is gone and there's nothing left but the playing out of an obviously threadbare story.

Star Wars - Boba Fett: Death, Lies, and Treachery

I don't care much about Star Wars these days, and I think that most of the old Expanded Universe was, as evidenced by Crimson Empire, pretty bad. Death, Lies, and Treachery, is that rare Star Wars EU comic which is actually good. John Wagner writes and he's in full-on 2000 AD mode, writing Boba Fett as a slightly more unpleasant Johnny Alpha (who is like a mercenary Judge Dredd, for those unfamiliar) right on down to the appearance of a funny alien sidekick for one of the characters. The main attraction is Cam Kennedy's art though, along with his inimitable colors: this might be the best looking Star Wars comic ever. The designs are all weird and chunky, with an almost kitbashed feeling that captures the lived in aesthetic of classic Star Wars, and the colors are one of a kind. Natural, neutral white light does not exist in this comic, everything is always bathed at all times in lurid greens or yellows, occasionally reds, and it looks incredible. In terms of "Expanded Universe" material for Star Wars, this hits the sweet spot of looking and feeling of a piece, but exploring the edges of the concept with a unique voice. It's great. I read this digitally, but I'd consider it a must-buy in print if I ever get the chance at a deal.

Zaroff

Zaroff is a French comic (novel? novella?). It's like 90 pages and it delivers exactly on its premise of "Die Hard starring the bad guy from The Most Dangerous Game." It's pretty good. Count Zaroff, he of the habitual hunting of humans, turns out to have killed a mafia don at some point, and after miraculously escaping his own seeming death at the end of the original story, finds himself hunted by the irate associates of this gangster, who have brought along Zaroff's sister and her kids to spice things up. Zaroff not only finds himself the hunt, but he also has to protect his estranged family as they struggle to survive. Nothing about this book or its twists and turns is likely to surprise you, but I don't think being surprised is always necessary for quality. Zaroff delivers on pulpy, early-20th century jungle action, is gorgeously rendered, and the fact that Zaroff himself is an unrepentant villain adds just enough of an unexpected element to the proceedings and character dynamics that it doesn't feel rote. There's a couple of points, ones typical of Eurocomics, which spark a slight sour note, such as some "period appropriate" racism and flashes of the male gaze, but for the most part these are relatively contained. It's good.

Batman: Gothic

Long before Grant Morrison did their Bat-epic, they wrote Batman: Gothic, an entirely different, but then again maybe not so different, kind of thing. It starts off with what must be called a riff on Fritz Lang's film, M, only where that story ends with a crew of gangsters deciding they cannot pass moral judgment on a deranged child-murderer, in Morrison's story they go ahead and kill him, only for the killer to return years later to rather horribly murder all of them as a warmup for a grandiose scheme involving unleashing a weaponized form of the bubonic plague on Gotham City as an offering to Satan. Along the way it turns out that said villain, one Mr. Whisper, is a former schoolmaster of Bruce Wayne's, who terrified the young Batman in the days before his parent's deaths. It's an earlier Morrison story and it shows. Certain elements presage their later Batman work; Mr. Whisper as a satanic enemy recalls the later Doctor Hurt, and the cathedral Mr. Whisper built to harvest souls recalls what writers like Morrison, Milligan, and Snyder would do concerning Gotham as a whole years later.The art, by Klaus Janson, is spectacular. If you're familiar at all with his work collaborating with Frank Miller you'll see him continuing in a similar vein and it's all quite good, even when he stretches beyond the street milieu which most readers might know him from. There's one particular sequence where Janson renders a needlessly complicated Rube Goldberg machine in motion that manages to work despite being static images. The writing by Morrison though, is not their finest. The M riff doesn't last as long as it could, and Mr. Whisper's turn in the latter half of the story from delicious creepy wraith to a cackling mass murderer who puts Batman in an easily escaped death trap feels like something of a letdown from the promise of the first half of the book. Gothic is good, but not, in my opinion, great. It's certainly worth checking out for Morrison fans however, and I imagine that someone well-versed in his latter Batman stuff might be able to find some real resonance between the two.

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters

For a long, long time, Longbow Hunters was THE Green Arrow story. It is to Green Arrow as TDKR is to Batman, deliberately so. Mike Grell wrote and drew the reinvention of the character from his role as the Justice League's resident limousine liberal to a gritty urban vigilante operating in Seattle over the course of these three issues, which he'd follow up with a subsequent ongoing. Going back to it, it certainly merits its reputation, but its far from timeless. Grell's art is unimpeachable absolutely incredible, with great splashes and spreads, subtle colors, and really great figure work. The narrative is almost so 80's it hurts though, revolving around West Coast serial killers, cocaine, the CIA and the Iran-Contra scandal, and the Yakuza, and it's hard to look back at some of this stuff without smirking. The story begins with a teenager strung out on tainted coke sprinting through a window in a scene that's right out of Reefer Madness. In the cold light of a day 30+ years later, parts of it look more than a little silly. The 80's-ness of it all doesn't stop with that stuff though, even the superhero elements smack of it. Green Arrow realizes that he's lost a step and has be to be shown a way forward by an Asian woman skilled in the martial arts (recalling Vic Sage's reinvention in the pages of The Question), and Black Canary gets captured and torture off-panel for the sake of showing that this is real crime now, not the superhero silliness they've dealt with before. The treatment of Black Canary here is pretty markedly heinous, it's a classic fridging and Grell's claims that he didn't intentionally imply sexual assault in his depiction of her torture is probably true, but still feels more than a little weak considering how he chose to render it.The final analysis is that this book is good, but it exists strictly in the frame of the 1980's. If you're a fan of Green Arrow, there are worse books to pick up, or if you're interested in that era of DC Comics it's more than worth it, but as a matter of general interest I wouldn't recommend it very highly.

SHIELD by Steranko

Jim Steranko is sort of the prodigy of the early Marvel years, a young guy who came up through the system, blossomed into an incredible talent, and then left the company, and by and large the industry, behind. He would go on to dabble in publishing, work in other mediums, and generally kick around as the prodigal son of Marvel Comics. This collection, of both his Nick Fury shorts in the pages of Strange Tales and the four issues he drew of the original Nick Fury solo series, charts Steranko's growth as an artist. The book starts off with Steranko working from Jack Kirby's layouts with Stan Lee's dialogue and writing, and Steranko might be the one guy in history for whom working off of Kirby's blueprints is clearly holding him back. The first third or so of this collection really isn't much to write home about, as Steranko is obviously constrained by someone else's style, and at the end of the day those early stories still read as somewhat uninspired pulp compared to the highlights of early Marvel. There are flashes though, of techniques and ideas, which foreshadow what Steranko is capable of, and when he finally takes over as solo writer/artist it's like he's been unleashed. He immediately has Nick Fury tear off his shirt and start throwing guys around over psychedelic effects. He writes out most of Kirby and Lee's frankly uninspired boys' club supporting cast, he makes Fury visibly older, wearier, but also so much cooler. It's the birth of Nick Fury as a distinctly comic book super spy.By the time he finishes wrapping up the previous writers' plotline with Hydra and Baron von Strucker, Steranko is firing on all cylinders. By the time it gets to Steranko's Fury solo series, he's somehow surpassed himself, turning in effects, panel structures, and weird stories which make the earlier installment about a suit-wearing Man from UNCLE knockoff and its strict six-panel layouts look absolutely fossilized.I can't recommend this collection highly enough for any fan of the artform, even if the stories themselves might not be everyone's cup of tear. It's truly incredible to watch Steranko emerge as an artist over the course of this single collection. The book itself has a few problems, it's not the most elegantly designed in its supporting materials and index, but the content of it more than outweighs that. It's great stuff.

#capsule reviews #comics

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cosmostationwallet · 4 years ago

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How "Crypto wallet" Currencies Work - A Short Summary Of Cosmos, Ethereum & Surge

" Crypto wallet" - or "crypto wallet money" - are a sort of software application system which offers transactional performance to individuals via the Internet. The most crucial attribute of the system is their decentralized nature - commonly offered by the blockchain database system. Blockchain as well as "crypto wallet money" have ended up being major components to the global zeitgeist lately; commonly as a result of the "price" of Cosmos skyrocketing. This has actually lead numerous people to join the market, with much of the "Cosmos exchanges" going through large infrastructure stresses as the demand skyrocketed. One of the most vital indicate realize about "crypto wallet" is that although it really serves a function (cross-border transactions via the Internet), it does not offer any kind of other economic advantage. In other words, its "innate worth" is staunchly limited to the capability to transact with other people; NOT in the keeping/ disseminating of worth (which is what most individuals see it as). The most essential thing you require to recognize is that "Cosmos" and so on are payment networks - NOT "currencies". This will certainly be covered extra deeply in a 2nd; one of the most crucial point to realize is that "obtaining rich" with BTC is not a situation of giving individuals any much better economic standing - it's merely the process of having the ability to acquire the "coins" for a small cost and offer them higher. To this end, when checking out "crypto wallet", you require to first understand how it in fact works, and also where its "value" truly lies ... Decentralized Payment Networks ... As stated, the essential thing to remember concerning "Crypto wallet" is that it's mainly a decentralized payment network. Think Visa/Mastercard without the central processing system. This is essential due to the fact that it highlights the actual reason people have really started checking out the "Cosmos" proposition much more deeply; it offers you the ability to send/receive cash from anyone all over the world, as long as they have your Cosmos wallet address. The reason this associates a "cost" to the numerous "coins" is as a result of the misconception that "Cosmos" will certainly in some way provide you the capacity to generate income through being a "crypto wallet" possession. It does not. The ONLY manner in which individuals have been making money with Cosmos has actually been because of the "surge" in its rate - buying the "coins" for an affordable price, and selling them for a MUCH higher one. Whilst it exercised well for many individuals, it was in fact based off the "greater fool concept" - essentially stating that if you handle to "sell" the coins, it's to a "greater fool" than you. This means that if you're looking to obtain entailed with the "crypto wallet" area today, you're basically considering purchasing any of the "coins" (also "alt" coins) which are cheap (or affordable), and also riding their price increases until you offer them off later. Since none of the "coins" are backed by real-world assets, there is no chance to approximate when/if/how this will certainly work. Future Growth For all intents-and-purposes, "Cosmos" is a spent force. The legendary rally of December 2017 indicated mass fostering, and whilst its cost will likely continue to become the $20,000+ range, getting one of the coins today will basically be a substantial wager that this will occur. The clever money is already considering the majority of "alt" coins (Ethereum/Ripple etc) which have a fairly small price, but are consistently expanding in price as well as adoption. The vital point to consider in the modern "crypto wallet" room is the method which the different "system" systems are in fact being made use of. Such is the busy "technology" room; Ethereum & Ripple are looking like the next "Cosmos" - with a concentrate on the method which they're able to give customers with the ability to really utilize "decentralized applications" (DApps) on top of their underlying networks to get capability to work.

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night-filled-mountain · 5 years ago

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so forgive me if this is kinda a stupid question but i have an oc from Boston and I've never actually been there (I'm from the south so my experience with anything in the north is limited lol) but I was wondering if there are like... certain phrases/interests/general info that I could use to build up her character a little more?

Not a stupid question! An exciting question!

So, disclaimer: I’m not a native Bostonian. I was born and raised in New Jersey. If I have any followers who can swoop in and correct or add to any of this, please do! But I’ve lived here on and off for 12 years and married a local, so I’ll give it my best shot.

First of all: Where in Boston is your OC from? This is pretty vital to pin down. It’d be a hugely different experience growing up in, say, Beacon Hill vs. Mattapan. There are plenty of basic breakdowns of the different neighborhoods online, but my one strength in answering this question is that I’ve moved all over this city like an erratic Ping-Pong ball. So if you need inside information about any specific area, I’ve lived or worked in: the Theater District, Back Bay, Allston, Brookline (not actually part of Boston, but closely associated with it), Kenmore/Fenway/Longwood (that’s kind of all one neighborhood, but I’ve got all three parts covered), the North End, Lower Mills (part of Dorchester, which is huge), and Mattapan. I’ve also hung out a lot in Downtown Crossing, Chinatown, Beacon Hill, and Cambridge (which is also not part of Boston).

If you don’t know what part of the city your OC’s from yet, think about her economic background, ethnicity/nationality, what she or her parents did/do for work, the kinds of places you imagine her spending her time, etc., and see if you can find a good match.

Other Boston things:

The accent: The Boston accent (as in “We pahk the cah on Hahvahd Yahd”) is real, but not universal. It’s mostly a thing in working-class families who’ve lived around here (and remained working-class) for at least a couple generations. My mother-in-law, who’s from a blue-collar Irish family in Dorchester, has it. Her husband is straight from Ireland with a full-blown brogue. And their four kids--all raised in the suburbs, all educated at private Catholic schools, after which they all went to college--have no trace of either accent.

Phrases: I feel like you want to be really careful with regional words/phrases in general, lest a character come off like a walking parody, but here are a few tips:

Possibly the most stereotypical Boston (and general New England) word is “wicked,” which is used to modify adjectives, as in “It’s wicked cold out” or “I’m wicked hungry.” (A girl from Maine was playing with my hair once and told me it was “wicked pretty,” and it was, like, the highlight of my life.) This is NOT something I hear on the regular, but I wouldn’t balk if your OC used it once or twice over the course of a story.

A liquor store is called a “packie” (short for “package store”). Don’t ask me why. My husband calls them this every time without fail, and was previously unaware that it was not a universal term.

A milkshake is called a frappe (which is pronounced “frap,” and does not involve coffee). Or at least, the drink in which you mix milk and ice cream, which would be called a milkshake in any other part of the country, is called a “frappe.” Supposedly, if you ask for a milkshake, you’ll get a drink made of milk and syrup with no ice cream, but I’ve never attempted this.

You don’t make a U-turn here--you “bang a U-ey.” Again, I can verify this one based on the fact that My Husband Says It. (And he once yelled it while playing a multiplayer video game involving cars, and was horrified when none of his fellow players had any idea what he was talking about.)

Interests: You’re probably already aware of the sports teams (Red Sox for baseball, Patriots for football, Celtics for basketball, Bruins for hockey). This is New England, Land of the Endless Winters, so hockey is pretty big (including casual kids’ hockey teams). Ice-skating is popular in general; the Frog Pond on the Boston Common (which doesn’t actually have any frogs) is a favorite spot.

As someone who is Not A Sports Person, I can also assure you that whether you want them to or not, the Red Sox will affect your life as a Bostonian. You will find yourself almost smothered to death on the T by dense crowds of drunk people in Sox gear on their way to or from a big game. You will be casually shopping downtown when a deafening wave of noise approaches, confetti rains down from the heavens, and you are nearly trampled to death by a post-World Series parade. You will be unable to sleep a wink the night after a game if you live anywhere near Fenway. And do not set foot in a bar at such times. DO NOT.

Other things that Bostonians care about more than the average person, in my experience: SEAFOOD; St. Patrick’s Day (I’ve never been to the parade because of reasons, and honestly, I’d also recommend avoiding the bars, the T, and even the very streets if possible); the Boston Pops concert and fireworks display at the Esplanade every Fourth of July (ok, that’s actually pretty fun); and all things American Revolution (well, you may not be interested, but you probably studied it intensively in school and visited a lot of local historical sites).

Public transit: Boston’s train/bus system is called the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority), but literally everyone calls it “the T.” If you travel on the T regularly, you probably have a CharlieCard:

These are named after an old campaign song by a politician who promised to lower the fares. It’s absurdly catchy.

Knowing what neighborhood your character is from tells you which T stations she would’ve lived near, which is also super important to my Bostonian mind. Is she a Red Line kid? Green? Orange? Blue? Or maybe she mostly took Silver Line buses, or rode the Commuter Rail (a.k.a. Purple Line) to work. (I‘ve only ever lived on the Green and Red Lines and certain bus lines, so I have Biases.)

College town: Boston is a college town. It is lousy with colleges. That’s what first brought me here, and even though I’m a townie now, I remember the culture well. College students make up around 20% of the city’s population when school is in session, and the downtown neighborhoods in particular are crawling with them. They swarm the bookstores and museums and bars (with real or fake IDs) and trendy restaurants. They work in every cafe and perform in every theater. They smoke clove cigarettes and take Duck Tours and ride the Swan Boats. If your character is a local, she’s had annoying encounters with college kids at some point or another. I promise not to take offense.

The Emerald Necklace: This is the nickname for a giant string of parks and waterways that surrounds the city of Boston. No matter where you live, including the most inner-city neighborhoods (which is where I currently live and work), chances are good that there is a substantial amount of green space and water in your general vicinity. Complete with hiking/bike paths that, if you follow them long enough, will take you through literal woods where you can see nothing but trees and hear nothing but birdsong. This is possibly my favorite thing about the whole New England region. It’s so heavily forested that you can still find your way to a little bit of nature in the most unexpected places.

Miscellaneous:

Dunkin’ Donuts is not found only in Boston, but it is more beloved in Boston than anywhere else on earth. I swear there is one on every block in the city. It is the place to get coffee as well as doughnuts. Starbucks is around here too, but is scorned in comparison.

J.P. Licks is a local chain of ice-cream stores with locations all over the city. Everyone goes there. It is very tasty.

The annual Christmas tree on the Boston Common is donated by Canadians from Nova Scotia. There’s a story behind it. It’s pretty cool. (The tree lighting is a huge event with speeches, music, fake snow, and sometimes fireworks. They actually light up the whole Common, which is gorgeous at night. I could see it from my dorm windows in college.)

This is obviously just a tiny fraction of Boston lore, but it’s still probably more than you wanted, and I should wrap this up while the day’s still young, so...hope some part of this was helpful! Let me know if you have any follow-up questions. I’m happy to ramble about Boston all day (...which is probably obvious by now).

#asks from the askbox #boston

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mediaeval-muse · 5 years ago

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Book Review

A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland. Saga Press. 2019.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: fantasy

Part of a Series? Yes, A Conspiracy of Truths #2

Summary: Three years ago, Ylfing watched his master-Chant tear a nation apart with nothing but the words on his tongue. Now Ylfing is all alone in a new realm, brokenhearted and grieving—but a Chant in his own right, employed as a translator to a wealthy merchant of luxury goods, Sterre de Waeyer. But Ylfing has been struggling to come to terms with what his master did, with the audiences he’s been alienated from, and with the stories he can no longer trust himself to tell. That is, until Ylfing’s employer finds out what he is, what he does, and what he knows. At Sterre’s command, Ylfing begins telling stories once more, fanning the city into a mania for a few shipments of an exotic flower. The prices skyrocket, but when disaster looms, Ylfing must face what he has done and decide who he wants to be: a man who walks away and lets the city shatter, as his master did? Or will he embrace the power of story to save ten thousand lives?

***Full review under the cut.***

Trigger Warnings: honestly, none that I would consider obvious (other than maybe strong language)

Overview: I adored A Conspiracy of Truths, so of course, I was going to pick up A Choir of Lies as soon as I could. I was so engrossed that it only took me two days to read (I’m preparing for my dissertation defense, so that should tell you something), and I enjoyed every moment of the experience.

Writing: Alexandra Rowland remains one of the few authors that can write a story in first person POV and I’ll gobble it up. Something about the way both this book and A Conspiracy of Truths take up the subject of storytelling and are self consciously concerned about the construction of stories makes the first person more palatable to me - when first person is treated more as a window into a character’s inner thoughts, the narration feels unnatural to me. But with this book, our narrator, Ylfing, is claiming to be crafting a story and writing it down to be read, so of course it would feel constructed or performative. Because Rowland’s books are about just that, I think she uses first person to her advantage.

I also really like that Rowland knows how to balance action and emotion, what's happening in the story and what’s happening in the narrator’s mind. She strikes a good balance, and I always felt like I was getting equal parts plot development and character development as I read. The only criticism I have in this regard is that the pacing at the beginning was a bit slow - the main conflict of the novel doesn’t really start until 100 pages in, so most of the beginning is exposition and character setup.

Something different about A Choir of Lies is that it makes use of footnotes. A Conspiracy of Truths was self-consciously about oral storytelling, while this book is self-consciously about written storytelling. The footnotes, made by an initially mysterious reader of Ylfing’s account, introduced an interactive element to the way the story unfolded, reminded the real reader (us) that Ylfing is not unbiased, that stories are told through a particular lens that is not objective. I loved the two tones of the main account and the footnotes, which made me feel like I was reading two different voices.

Plot: The main plot of this book isn’t too complicated. Three years after A Conspiracy of Truths, Ylfing finds himself working for a merchant, hawking exotic flowers using his storytelling abilities to make them seem rare and special. Thanks to his efforts, the flowers are in such high demand that people start paying extravagant prices for them, and sell “future bulbs” which haven’t even sprout yet. As you may see, there’s a lot that can go wrong with this setup, and when economic disaster finally does strike, it’s not necessarily something that is unforeseen.

What makes the narrative engaging, however, is Ylfing’s personal development within and alongside this economic plot. The economic narrative is all about people using Ylfing, and how Ylfing is still trying to find his place in the world after being abandoned by his Master Chant. I really enjoyed the parallels between what Ylfing was uncovering about the flowers, his boss, and his social circle and what he was uncovering about himself and Chanting. There were also some nice musings on the power of stories and the human inclination to help one another selflessly, which were woven into the plot skillfully.

Characters: I loved Ylfing in the first book, and I continued to love him in this book. The poor boy is an extremely sensitive soul who is so earnest in everything he does, and I loved that he developed into someone who can reflect on his own actions and flaws. The first part of this book follows Ylfing through a major bout of depression, which caused me some concern since he was full of life and joy in the previous installment. His depression, however, is very understandable, and when he eventually returns to his old self (or close to his old self), I found the development quite satisfying.

Mistress Chant, our footnote-writer and major supporting character in the novel, was a great foil for Ylfing. Though she is a Chant, her opinions about Chanting are very different, and she pushes and challenges Ylfing on his ideas, refusing to let him wash his hands of his involvement in the economic crisis, even when he is depressed. Every time they interacted on the page, I was delighted by their quasi-philosophical conversations, and I loved that they simultaneously found companionship in one another and were constantly angry with the other’s outlook.

Most of the supporting characters were likewise well-developed in a way that made them feel unique and real. Sterre, Ylfing’s boss, is greedy in a subtle way, and Ylfing’s initial defense of her really highlights his naivete. Orfeo, Ylfing’s love interest, is charismatic and by all appearances a very tender, considerate lover. I loved the interactions between them, as Orfeo seemed to bring Ylfing the comfort and understanding he needed to find himself. I also appreciated that Rowland was able to write their relationship in a non-problematic way, creating drama without resorting to death or problematic behaviors.

Other: Rowland’s worldbuilding makes every location in her books feel like it has its own history and culture. Ylfing carefully describes to the reader how languages vary not just in terms of grammar, but in context; Spraacht, for example, has six grammatical genders, which matches the six genders in Heyrland society. Heyrland is also unique in its location by the water, and the extensive system of canals and dikes affect the way characters behave, how they speak, and how their trades develop. I love these little anchors that Rowland creates because it makes it seem like she put thought into how a society would function, rather than just cobbling together some names and calling it a day.

I also appreciated that Rowland writes LGBT+ and gender non-forming characters as commonplace in her world. There aren’t any locations (I don’t think) in which LGBT+ people are discriminated against - their existence, as well as queer marriages, are ubiquitous and not at all treated as something “different” or a “special case” in a world of normative relationships.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in fantasy (especially fantasy featuring an LGBT+ character), storytelling, economic plots, and characters finding themselves.

#book reviews

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strathoa · 5 years ago

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Exploring complexity: the two sides of Open Science

Pablo de Castro, Open Access Advocacy Librarian

One may see Open Science (which some prefer to call Open Research) as an altruistic movement towards opening up research methods and especially its outputs for the sake of their visibility and open availability to the wider society. The legitimate right for any citizen to read research outputs resulting from public funding is regularly raised by every Open Access advocate – including yours truly – when explaining the rationale for Open Science. Patients, schoolteachers, doctors are highlighted as the sort of citizens that may need to access scientific literature and may be forced to pay for such access unless we succeed in our push towards Open Science. And SMEs. Yes, one always mentions SMEs here as well. In fact anyone who happens to be outside the institutional subscription bubbles. There is another take to Open Science though, a far more pragmatic and hence more likely to succeed approach. This other take, although not unconcerned with access to research results by the average citizen, is mostly about the possibility of exploiting the synergies between research and industry by making not only research results but other areas such as research facilities or expertise as openly available to industry (and the wider outside world) as possible. This is the approach driven by innovation that sees research and its commercial application as a continuum and understands the value of openness for the purpose of realising that continuum. The first concept of Open Science is traditionally adopted by research libraries, whereas the second one is characteristic of research offices and any pragmatic approach to research such as research assessment (the REF) and the measurement of research impact. This is hardly surprising: libraries have made a historical emphasis on their users (nowadays often called "customers") and making content available to them in as freely as possible a way. One has also elaborated elsewhere ("spenders not fundraisers") about the traditionally poor approach that libraries display towards raising funding besides spending large amounts of it. While hardly surprising then, this difference in approaches also creates a large ideological divide that tends to isolate university libraries and the research support services they host with regard to practically any other research-related instance at the institution and beyond. This is of course unless there is a carefully nurtured bridge between services and a communication channel that allows the mutual understanding and respect for each other's practices and drivers. Collaboration with industry is perhaps not part of the traditional mission for universities – 'traditional' meaning here the foundation of the University of Bologna in 1088 – but the triple helix concept has been around – and deeply influenced the way universities operate – for quite some time now. These days collaboration with industry may well be among the most important missions of a public university within a knowledge society (see in this regard the enlightening white paper "The role of universities of Science and Technology in innovation ecosystems: towards Mission 3.1" produced at Strathclyde Uni in collaboration with other European Universities of Science & Technology within the CESAER Task Force Innovation). All this is not just about job creation and general scientific and technological progress, but mostly about implementing this continuum between research and its commercial application in a way that allows public investment to benefit the wider socio-economic tissue that surrounds higher education institutions. Same as it is deeply right that elderly ladies outwith the Strathclyde sphere of influence are able (and so happy!) to use the brand new, flashy Sports Centre the University has built on Cathedral Street, it is deeply right that master students at the University are able to conduct their learning and their training at commercial partners where they may well end up employed in a couple of years' time. There are of course many issues raised by the innovation-driven approach to Open Science becoming mainstream (if none of them is unsolvable). The attitude to adopt with regard to basic research and to research in the Humanities is one of them. The seemingly unstoppable trend towards an ever increasing commercialisation of research is another one. The clash between openness for the sake of widening access to research outputs for everyone and openness for the sake of their commercial exploitation is perhaps the key one to explore as part of the current effort for the definition of the workflows associated to Open Science implementation. But there are also many upsides stemming from this approach too. The main one of these may well be that this is a deeply shared philosophy across European countries and regions (and beyond), where the economic return of the investments on research infrastructure and activity is solidly sitting on the radar of policymakers everywhere – hence the European and Regional Innovation Scoreboards where every country and region in Europe may assess its progress within this general trend to strengthen the continuum between Academia and Industry. Moreover, this is not a zero-sum game: because of the deeply transnational character of research and innovation, there is a knock-on effect whereby improved innovation systems in a given region benefit the global competitivity of the wider economic area, be it a country or a Union thereof. In the meantime, and from a library perspective, it would be good for research support services at research libraries to widen their perspective a bit. It's not just that the discussion around (for instance) Plan S and Gold Open Access implementation via Read & Publish agreements gains a whole new dimension when examined under an innovation-driven perspective. It's also that the kind of tasks that research support services are currently undertaking could be redesigned for a better alignment with this mainstream approach to the institutional research activity so that the potential synergies could be much better exploited. These aspects will be addressed in a companion post that will look into what Open Science services currently do and what else they could do if they managed to find the resources for it by adequately redistributing their workload.

#open science #innovation #openaccess #cesaer #collaboration with industry

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